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Fathers, Sons and the Political in Contemporary Afrikaans Fiction

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Fathers, Sons and the Political in Contemporary Afrikaans Fiction Fathers, sons and the political in contemporary Afrikaans fiction Andries Visagie Abstract This article examines the role of the father in the transferral of ideological be­ liefs to the son within the Afrikaans-speaking family as represented in the fic­ tion of contemporary male authors, specifically Alexander Strachan, Mark Behr and S.P. Benjamin. The research is guided by the central question of ideologi­ cal factors regulating the relation between gender and politics. Kaja Silver­ man's interpretation of Jacques Lacan's work and her psychoanalytical distinc­ tion between the penis and the phallus in Male Subjectivity at the Margins (1992) form the theoretical basis of this study. Finally, some remarks are made on the role of the father in the public debate about the cultural identity of Afrikaans-speaking South Africans after apartheid. 1. Introduction The Afrikaner nation has often been characterised as a predominantly pa­ triarchal society. In the past, Afrikaner leaders have frequently assumed the role of political patriarchs ranging from the benevolent father figure, Paul Kruger, to the forbidding father, P.W. Botha. In line with this phe­ nomenon, the infamous apartheid policy has been invested with a patriar­ chal approach towards black South Africans forcing them into the roles of minor sons and daughters of the white ruling class. Kobus du Pisani (1997:19) has indicated that one of the stereotypical symbols of Afrikaner masculinity resides within the father figure, both within the context of the family and within political discourse. The fam­ ily, traditionally headed by the father, largely instils the worldview of the individual. Therefore, it is not surprising that the influence of the family on the life of the individual is such a notable preoccupation of Afrikaans writers (cf. Renders, 1998:53). In fact, since the 1990s Afrikaans fiction has been going through a process of emancipation - "ontvoogding" as Henriette Roos (1999: 112) describes it - of suppressive centred ideolo­ gies as personified by the father. Women authors have consolidated their position in Afrikaans fiction, gay authors have spoken out against sexual oppression and history has been reviewed to confront the Afrikaner's in­ volvement in apartheid. In 2000, the political fathers became the focal 140 STILET - Year XIII: 2 - JUNE 2001 point of emancipation in Afrikaner culture. Radio journalist Chris Louw (2000: 13) led the attack in a strongly worded attack on Willem de Klerk, well-known Afrikaner intellectual and author of the polemical book Afrikaners: kroes, kras, kordaat (2000). In the debate that followed, many Afrikaner men and women articulated their frustration with the older gen­ eration that reaped all the benefits of white supremacy while leaving their children ill-prepared for the challenges of a non-racial South Africa ruled by a government intent on bringing white privilege to an end. In this article, I will examine the role of the father in the transferral of ideological beliefs to the son within the Afrikaans-speaking family as rep­ resented in the fiction of contemporary male authors, specifically Alexan­ der Strachan, Mark Behr and S.P. Benjamin. I will be guided by the cen­ tral question of ideological factors regulating the relation between gender and politics. 2. Fatherhood, ideology and psychoanalysis Any attempt to theorise the connections between family relations and the realm of politics requires both a study of aspects of psychoanalysis and the theory of ideology. Quite often the point of intersection seems to be represented by the Oedipus complex. In an article on the position of sub­ jectivity in the face of political systems and the Law, Philippe van Haute (1996) scrutinises Freud's explanation of the emergence of societal struc­ tures in primitive society in his well-known work Totem and Taboo. De­ parting from a description of the ritualistic killing and eating of the totem animal in primitive tribes, Freud (1958: 157) extends his theories of the fa­ ther-complex to the so-called "collective mind." The totem animal comes to represent the primal father within the primal patriarchal horde. Ori­ ginally, the brothers within this horde collectively killed and devoured their father, the feared and envied model of each one in the company of brothers, the one individual standing in the way of their sexual aspirations and claims to power. In eating the flesh of the father, the brothers accom­ plish their identification with him. Freud (1958: 143) adds: After they had got rid of him, had satisfied their hatred and had put into effect their wish to identify themselves with him, the affection which had all this time been pushed under was bound to make itself felt. It did so in the form of remorse. A sense of gUilt made its appearance. Following Freud, Van Haute (1996:189) points out that the sons are con­ fronted with the law of the father once they have been overcome with feelings of guilt: "Paradoxically, it is just when there is no longer anyone around to forbid anything whatsoever that the law and guilt ... establish 'themselves'''. The law governing social organisation comes into being when the gUilty sons affectionately start to commemorate the father and accept that they will have to take other into account in their ambitions for 141 Fathers, sons and the political in contemporary Afrikaans fiction absolute power. The superego as the ethical component of the personality which deals with the rules and regulations of the larger society, originates from an identification with the representatives of the law (the parents and notably the father) and is thus established in the lives of the sons. Freud's account of the Oedipal structure of societal authority may seem rather speculative. However, the theories of Jacques Lacan and Louis Althusser on psychoanalysis and ideology provide a more circum­ spect account of the interaction between the familial drama and socio-political forces. Lacan's proposals concerning the subject's introduc­ tion into the so-called symbolic order constitute an attempt to describe the position of the subject as a social being. The symbolic can be seen as a "third order", in other words an order that is organised between the sub­ ject and the real world (see Lacan, 1993:810). The entry of the young child into the symbolic order entails its insertion into the symbolic regis­ ter of language and of the family that leads to a circumscription of the child's individuality within the family group and within society at large. The subject is inserted into the linguistic circuit of exchange once it is named in its parents' discourse and has received a forename. (Lemaire, 1977:67,70,78) It should be clear that the confrontation with language coupled with an enhanced consciousness of the familial dynamic constitute for Lacan the child's entry into the symbolic order and its consequent accession to subjectivity. The Oedipal phenomenon is instrumental in the transition from an immediate or mirror relationship to the mediated relationship proper to the symbolic. (Lacan, 1993:96; Lemaire, 1977:78) The Oedipal drama commences when the child, who wants to be everything for the caring mother, wishes to be the complement of what is lacking in the mother, namely the phallus which is the object of her desire: "If the desire of the mother is the phallus, the child wishes to be the phallus in order to satisfy that desire." (Lacan, 1977:289) Lacan (quoted by Silverman, 1983: 183) uses the term "phallus" as the signifier of the subject's "alienation in signification". The phallus rep­ resents everything which has been cut off from the subject during the var­ ious stages of its coming into being, and which will never be returned to it, but persists nevertheless as the memory of a lost "fullness of being." This loss or lack is the result of the castrating effect of the confrontation, introduced by the father, with language and signification: "There has to be a law, a chain, a symbolic order, the intervention of the order of speech, that is, of the father." (Lacan 1993:96) The father is perceived to be in possession of the phallus and to be the one who can use the phallus in a socially normalised relationship. This perception leads to the child's identification with the father. (Lemaire, 142 STILET - Year XIII: 2 - JUNE 2001 1977:87) The child submits to the Law of the Father: the acceptance of the authority and phallic status of the father represents a precondition of the child's having a place within the socio-symbolic order, a name and a speaking position. (Lacan, 1977:199,218; Sarup, 1992:122) Anika Lemaire (1977:90) defines the Oedipus complex as a cultural phenomenon: The prohibition of incest is inscribed in the social code which pre-exists the individual existence ... It is through language that he I the individual - A VJ will progressively assume the Oedipal drama ... as an ancestral heri­ tage in which he situates himself. Lemaire (1977:92) concludes that the Oedipus is the very structure of the unconscious forms of society and rightly adds that Lacan cannot success­ fully cross the theoretical divide between the individual unconscious and o the socio-political realm that is presumed to be homologous with it. Enriching Lacanian psychoanalysis with Althusser's theories on the ideological imperatives implicated in the construction of male subjectiv­ ity, Kaja Silverman offers a provocative reading of Western patriarchy in her book Male Subjectivity at the Margins (1992). Silverman (1992:35, 54) believes in the existence of a representational system that is responsi­ ble for the accommodation of the subject to the Name-of-the-Father. This representational system is termed the "dominant fiction" and comprises the whole repertoire of a culture's images, sounds and narrative utterances through which the normative subject is psychically aligned with the sym­ bolic order.
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